Long Cuts

Essays

Oct 15

I’m not into shortcuts. I don’t want to hack things. I don’t believe anyone has ever been an overnight success. I am not in a rush. I don’t expect results that I haven’t earned. I don’t need to be a growth engine. I don’t want the wind at my back to help me run faster. I don’t need anything right now.

I’d rather take a long, meandering walk through an oblong forest with only orange marks on the trees to help me find my way. I’d rather take 47 minutes, lay down a blanket in a grassy field, and practice stillness of body and mind under the only tree. I want slow mornings with clouds lollygagging through the sky outside my window. I want to wait too long for my tea to steep, then let it cool, before I value every sip until it’s gone.

I don’t want a cheat code. I don’t want to know the answers to any questions before I know to ask them. I don’t want you to read my mind. I don’t want to yearn for anything out of my reach. I don’t need a supercharge. I don’t have to do anything.

I want to take slow bites and savor the flavor. I want to sit in silence from light to dark, with no disturbances other than birds. I want to take long drives with no destination and no map. I want to do everything in my life twice as slowly as I ever have. I want to slumber in molasses.

I see you taking all of the shortcuts to get somewhere that will only lead you to another shortcut. You are in a maze of overreach. You are carrying too many blocks, and sometimes, I want to watch you stumble. You will leave the blocks on the ground because cleaning them up and reorganizing them takes patience, and you don’t have that. You are rushing to the end.

I am trying to walk backward through my life until I bump into my old self trying to do the same. And then we’ll walk together until we find my third self. The three of us will then lie down in a meadow and let the rain fall on us, unsheltered. The water will put us back together as one, and we will continue to walk backward until we can go forward again, but slower.